De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus et libertate

Whether, without help of grace inhering in the created will, by the Holy Spirit's external assistance alone, free choice can elicit a supernatural act of faith, hope, charity, or penance.

I. Certain theologians think that, without inhering helps of grace, God by his absolute power can immediately compensate for and supply the concurrence of supernatural habits and gifts inhering in the powers, and cooperate with free choice in acts of faith, hope, and charity through such and so great an influx that these acts become as they would be if prevenient grace preceded them. Others judge this opinion probable and add that supernatural acts elicited before the infusion of a habit have in a person no physical supernatural principle inhering in his powers; rather, God immediately supplies the character of an inhering habit and motion through a certain external assistance, which they call God's assisting power. All who hold that God, by external assistance alone and by a special power and concurrence, can supply every efficacy of a quality and produce the vision of himself together with the created intellect alone consequently teach the same opinion. It is proved as follows.

First. God can cause a created intellect, without the light of glory and without any inhering gift, to see the divine essence clearly by supplying through his particular immediate influx the role of the light of glory in the vision. Therefore, all the more can he cause this in acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition. The consequence is proved because the act of the beatific vision exceeds nature's capacity much more than an act of charity. The antecedent is proved by the authority of St. Thomas in book 4 of the Sentences, distinction 49, question 2, article 7 and On Truth, question 10, article 11, where he says that sometimes the beatific vision can be communicated miraculously to a person existing only in the dispositions of this life. Since the light of glory is a disposition of the heavenly homeland, it follows that according to St. Thomas's opinion the beatific vision can be communicated to someone without it. Likewise, in the same art. 11, he says that the divine essence can be united with the intellect in this life in the way it is united in the heavenly homeland, without the intellect being perfected by the light of glory. And in Part I, question 12, article 1, body of the article, he says that, although God is most knowable in himself, he is not knowable by us because the intelligible exceeds our intellect, just as the sun, though most visible, cannot be seen by a bat because of the excess of light. He teaches the same in 3. Contra Gentiles, ch. 54, response to the first argument. But God by his absolute power can make the eyes of a bat see the light of the sun without impressing any inhering quality on them. Therefore.

The same antecedent is confirmed, first. If the light of glory were absolutely necessary for seeing God, it would be so for two reasons: first, as a disposition by which the intellect is disposed for the divine essence to be united with it as an intelligible species; second, as a perfection of the intellect giving it, on the power's part, the ability to see God. But God by his absolute power can introduce a form into matter without a prior disposition, for he can introduce the form of fire without prior heat, since he can separate heat from the substantial form of fire. Similarly, he can strengthen the intellect and give it active power to see God without any supernatural form inhering in it; for he can cause fire to heat without heat, since he can supply the role of an efficient cause. Therefore.

The antecedent is confirmed, second. God can by his absolute power cause someone existing in mortal sin to see God through his essence. Therefore, all the more can he cause someone existing in habitual grace to see him without the light of glory. The consequence is clear: since the beatific vision is a person's ultimate beatitude, it depends no less on justifying grace than on the light of glory. The antecedent is proved: mortal sin and the beatific vision do not have a formal opposition. Therefore, it does not entail a contradiction for them to exist together in the same person.

II. Second, it is argued as follows: no contradiction is apparent in God's supplying the role of a habit and inhering help by his influx or assisting power. Therefore, without them, the intellect and will, with the assisting power of the Holy Spirit, can elicit supernatural acts by which they dispose themselves for grace.

Third. A supernatural habit or inhering help is not the entire power of the faculty for believing or loving God by a supernatural act; rather, created free choice itself also contributes immediately to those same acts. Otherwise, they would not proceed from a principle of life, but from a supernatural form, and would not be vital actions. Therefore, just as inhering grace contributes immediately as a partial cause together with free choice to a supernatural act, so God will be able by his assisting power to contribute immediately together with the same free choice to a supernatural action without inhering grace.

This is confirmed. Whatever God can do with a second efficient cause, he can do by himself alone. But a supernatural form inhering in free choice, whether considered as a habit or as an actual motion, contributes efficiently to producing a supernatural act. Therefore, without such an inhering form, God will be able immediately to produce the same supernatural act together with free choice.

Fourth. The opinion of those Scholastics who assert that free choice can produce supernatural acts of believing, hoping, and loving as to their substance without the help of grace is probable. Therefore God will be able by his immediate influx to elevate those acts so that they be supernatural and of the kind required for salvation, without imprinting anything in free choice by which it elicits those same acts.

This is confirmed. The supernatural character of an act of believing and loving does not proceed efficiently from free choice, but from God flowing into that same act through prevenient grace or through a habit. Therefore it is not absolutely necessary for free choice to be elevated by a supernatural form inhering in it in order to produce that same supernatural act.

III. Fifth. Acts of faith elicited by catechumens before the habit of faith is infused in them at baptism are truly supernatural acts, since they are dispositions for justifying grace, as is clear from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 6. Yet they have no physical inherent efficient principle in man except the intellect and will; rather, God himself, through himself, is the assisting power and by his efficacy supplies the role of a habit. Therefore. The minor premise is proved: at that point God cannot elevate the will or intellect through an intrinsic habitual power, because, as is supposed¹, those acts precede the habit; nor through an actual power, because there is no sufficient one. Therefore he helps through the extrinsic assistance of his own power alone.

The more recent Thomists commonly defend the contrary opinion. It is also one that those Doctors must consistently teach who hold that it is impossible, by God's absolute power, for the intellect of a blessed person to see God through his essence without the light of glory, at least by way of an inhering motion. These are Capreolus in 4, distinction 49, question 4, article 1, conclusion 2, and article 3, against Scotus's arguments to the second conclusion; Ferrariensis, 3 against Gentiles, chapter 54; Cajetan, 1 p. question 12, articles 4 and 5; and Soto in 4, distinction 49, question 2, article 4. I consider this opinion true and very consonant with the teaching of St. Thomas and the decrees of the Councils. Therefore, for its explanation, let the following be stated.

IIII. First conclusion. By the extrinsic assistance of the Holy Spirit alone, man's free choice cannot in fact and according to the ordinary law produce any supernatural act of faith, hope, or charity, even among those acts that precede the infusion of the habit in the order of nature or of time. Rather, some gift of grace inhering in that same free choice must necessarily be established, by which it is elevated to produce such supernatural acts.² The conclusion is against some of the authors cited in support of the first opinion. It is proved.

First, from the Council of Trent, session 6, On Justification, chapter 5, where it says: It further declares that the beginning of justification itself in adults must be taken³ from the prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his call, by which they are called without any merits on their part, so that those who had been turned away from God through sins may, through his rousing and assisting grace, be disposed to turn to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that same grace. In this passage the holy Synod teaches clearly enough that by an inhering grace God helps man's free choice to elicit a disposition for justifying grace.⁴ And it adds immediately that without the grace of God, man cannot move himself toward justice by his own free will.

Some answer that the Council can be understood as speaking of uncreated grace. To explain this, they presuppose that assisting grace can be considered in two ways. In one way, in first act; and in this way, they say, it is something uncreated, because it is nothing other than God himself assisting the soul, which he has stirred to its conversion, and ready to help and uplift it in a very special way to effect a supernatural act if it should wish to cooperate. In another way, assisting grace can be considered in second act. In this respect, they acknowledge that the action, as proceeding from God, is something created; it can also be called assisting grace. Under the same aspect they concede that assisting grace is something inhering in the will and that God's supernatural concurrence is received in it; and they add that it is not necessary for every assisting principle to inhere in the will itself⁵, nor does this have a foundation in the Council.

Nevertheless, this explanation does not seem to accord with the words of the holy Council of Trent, for it speaks of created assisting grace and consequently of an inhering grace through which, before his consent and cooperation, man is moved by God and prepared to consent to God calling him. This is also gathered from canon 4 of that same session, in which it is defined that man's free choice, moved and roused by God, etc., can dissent if it wishes. In this passage the words moved and roused designate a created motion received in free choice, for motion is in what is moved. The same is suggested in chapter 5 of that same session when it teaches that when God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the man himself does something, receiving that inspiration, since he can also reject it. Consider the words when he touches and receiving that inspiration, etc., for they signify something created received in the soul. This is also suggested by the word reject, by which the holy Synod signified that free choice can reject, if it wishes, that motion of prevenient grace that it receives in itself, so that by freely cooperating it may dispose and prepare itself to attain the grace of justification. Therefore it must necessarily be said that free choice is elevated by assisting grace inhering in it, so that it elicits supernatural acts by which it disposes itself for justifying grace. Therefore such acts are not produced by free choice alone, with God's extrinsic assistance, without an inhering gift of grace.

V. Second, it is proved: God's mere external assistance is not sufficient for free choice to be elevated to produce supernatural acts. Therefore, some inherent supernatural power is necessarily required, by reason of which free choice has proportion with a supernatural act and belongs to the same order as that act. The antecedent is proved: as St. Thomas teaches in part I, question 8, articles 1 and 3, God is intimately present to all things through his essence, presence, and power. Therefore, that external assistance of divine power is not enough to elevate free choice to elicit supernatural acts; another, special assistance and power is required for this. For free choice cannot be elevated to supernatural acts by what belongs generally to the divine essence or power with respect to all things.

If it is said that this assistance of divine power is special because it assists free choice for this effect, namely, to flow immediately with it into supernatural acts of believing, hoping, and loving, there is an argument against this: God is specially present in human beings because he causes something supernatural in them. For this reason he is said to be specially present in the justified, since he dwells in them through inherent grace and charity. But through that external assistance he causes nothing supernatural in free choice, not even by way of a transient disposition by which free choice is helped and made powerful to produce supernatural acts. Therefore, that assistance is called special only in name; in reality it is not special.

Third, it is proved: otherwise it would follow that free choice could, through the capacity of nature intrinsic to itself alone, believe, love, and hope, and elicit other supernatural acts. But this consequence cannot be admitted, as was shown in disputations 49 and 51. Therefore. The major premise is proved: if no inherent gift of grace is posited in free choice as a formal physical principle by which the same free choice produces supernatural acts, then free choice physically cooperates with God as he calls by its own natural power alone.

VI. Second Conclusion. Not even by God's absolute power can free choice elicit the aforesaid supernatural acts unless it is elevated and constituted as a proximate power with respect to those same acts through some gift of grace inhering in it, at least by way of a disposition. This conclusion can be proved by all the arguments ordinarily used to prove that it entails a contradiction for a created intellect to see God as he is without an inherent light of glory, at least by way of a motion, in part I, q. 12, art. 5. It is further proved: acts of faith, hope, and charity are supernatural as to their substance, as was said above. Therefore, the proximate power producing these acts must be supernatural, for act and power must be proportionate. But without an inherent gift of grace, free choice is not formally a supernatural active power but purely natural. Therefore, it is impossible for it to elicit acts supernatural as to their substance. It is confirmed: a human being, or his free choice, is the proximate principal cause of supernatural acts, as was said above. Therefore, to produce them he must have some supernatural form. The consequence is proved: as St. Thomas teaches in I–II, question 112, article 1, and part III, question 62, article 4, a principal cause must operate through its own form, proportionate to the effect. For this reason he proves that a human being cannot be the principal cause of grace, but only its instrumental cause, because a proper form cannot be communicated to him through which he efficiently produces grace as a principal cause.

VII. Second, it is proved. God cannot flow immediately into a supernatural act of faith or charity except as a universal cause, because, since it is a vital act, it expresses a formal and intrinsic order to a vital power as its particular and proximate cause. Therefore, unless something supernatural first flows into free choice, God cannot produce an act of faith or charity with it. Otherwise, he could produce those same acts by himself alone, without the cooperation of free choice, which plainly entails a contradiction.

This argument is confirmed by all the arguments with which it was shown above that God's general concurrence is an immediate influx of God into secondary causes.⁶ For from this it is evidently inferred that it is impossible for God to concur with free choice in supernatural acts unless something supernatural flows into free choice itself.

Third, it is proved: St. Thomas in Book 2 Against the Gentiles, chapter 59, argument 4, proves on this basis that a human being cannot understand through a separate intellect, because a separate intellect does not give him being formally. Aristotle in On the Soul 2, text 24, infers from this that the soul is an intrinsic act of the body and gives it being formally, because it is a principle of operation. Therefore, if divine help is a principle giving a human being proximate power for supernatural acts, it will be something intrinsic to him and inhering in him. It is confirmed: not even by absolute power could the soul of Christ formally understand through the divine intellect, because the divine intellect was not inherent in that soul but assisting it. Therefore, neither can a created intellect or will elicit a supernatural act through God's extrinsic power⁷ alone, because that power does not inhere in the intellect and will but only assists them.

VIII. To the first argument from the authorities of St. Thomas, it is answered with Master Soto at the end of the cited art. 4 above that in the first two passages he is speaking of the light of glory as a habit: for as a habit it is a proper disposition of the heavenly homeland, but as a disposition it can be had in this life, as St. Paul had it in his rapture. Without this light, at least as a disposition, it entails a contradiction for God to be seen as he is. To the other passages of St. Thomas it is answered that the likeness does not hold in every respect, but in this: just as the light of the sun is an object exceeding the visual power of a bat, so the divine essence exceeds the capacity of a created cognitive power. Yet there is this difference: the light of the sun does not absolutely exceed the capacity of a created power, since the sun is naturally visible, but it exceeds the capacity of this or that power on account of that power's weakness; the divine essence, however, exceeds the capacity of every created or creatable power. Hence the intellect must be elevated by the light of glory inhering in it in order to see God clearly as he is in himself.

To the first confirmation certain Thomists reply that, if the light of glory is considered precisely insofar as it disposes the intellect so that the divine essence is united with it as an intelligible species, it is not absolutely necessary, and they are convinced by the argument made: for God can unite a form without a prior disposition. But if it is considered insofar as it gives the intellect active power to see God, it is absolutely necessary for the reasons given above. We reply that it is absolutely necessary for both reasons.⁸ To the objection it is said that, when a form is united with something in intelligible or sensible being, the disposition constituting the power in the being of a proximate power is so necessary that without it such a form cannot be united with that power, as was shown above.

IX. To the other objection it is answered that, when a second efficient cause is vital, God cannot immediately supply its role by himself, because the effect depends on it not only in the genus of efficient cause but also in the genus of formal cause, as was said above.⁹ Since, then, the light of glory is a vital form that, as the principle by which the intellect acts, gives it proximate vitality with respect to the beatific vision, as is clear from what was established above, it remains that it cannot be brought about by any power that a created intellect see God through his essence without an inhering light of glory. The same must proportionally be said about other supernatural acts.

To the second confirmation certain Doctors reply that it is impossible even by God's absolute power for the clear vision of God as he is in himself to be communicated to someone existing in mortal sin, and they prove this. First, the beatific vision has the character of ultimate beatitude without qualification, but beatitude without qualification cannot exist with mortal sin. For one who is in mortal sin is wretched without qualification and not blessed, as St. Thomas often teaches, because mortal sin is the greatest misery of a rational creature. Second, the love of God above all things necessarily follows from the clear vision of God, as St. Thomas shows in I–II and other places. But mortal sin is incompatible with the love of God above all things. Therefore, it is likewise incompatible with the clear vision of God. Many learned men follow the opposite opinion. According to it, speaking per se, it entails no contradiction that the clear vision of God as he is in himself be communicated to a person existing in mortal sin, not in the character of beatifying the person without qualification, but precisely in the character of the clear vision of God.¹⁰ The reason touched on in the argument suggests this: the clear vision of God in the character of vision and mortal sin do not, speaking per se, have a formal opposition. Therefore, it does not entail a contradiction for them to coexist in the same person. I said “speaking per se,” because there are some mortal sins with which the beatific vision cannot coexist, since they have a formal opposition to it, such as the sin of heresy against God's unity and the Trinity of persons, and those things that are formally in God; for it entails a contradiction for error and clear vision concerning the same object to coexist. But other mortal sins, such as theft and homicide, do not have this kind of formal opposition to the clear vision of God. Hence, it does not entail a contradiction for them to remain together with it by God's absolute power. To the first reason of the contrary opinion it is answered that it only proves that the vision of God in the character of beatitude or beatific vision cannot coexist with mortal sin; it does not prove that, in the character of the clear vision of God, it is incompatible with mortal sin. To the second reason it is answered that God by his infinite power can prevent the love of God above all things from following the beatific vision, since the clear vision of God does not depend essentially on love of God. Accordingly, in line with this opinion, the second confirmation is answered by denying the consequence. To the proof it is said that the clear vision of God does depend on justifying grace and presuppose it according to God's ordinary power and the common law, but not according to God's absolute power, as is clear from what was established above. However, the clear vision of God depends on an inhering light of glory in such a way that it cannot be produced without it even by absolute power, because it depends on it in the genus of formal cause, as was said.

X. To the second argument, it is answered that if the created intellect or will, without an inhering supernatural gift, produced supernatural acts, two true contradictories would follow,¹¹ namely: “The created intellect vitally produces a supernatural act as a proximate principal cause,” and “It does not vitally produce that act as a proximate principal cause.” For the affirmative proposition is supposed true, but the negative is proved by the arguments made: a principal cause, especially a vital one, must operate through a proper form proportionate to its effect. Since, then, the intellect without an inhering gift of grace has no form proportionate to a supernatural act by which it is established in first act with respect to that same act, it remains that it is not the proximate and principal vital cause producing that same act.

To the third, it is answered that the inhering gift of grace, as the principle by which the faculty acts, is its entire proximate power for believing and loving God, as was said above. For free choice does not have from itself, but from the gift of grace, the fact that it flows into a supernatural act. Nor does it follow from this that it is not truly free in its operation; it only follows that it is not the absolutely first free cause, as was said above and will be said below.¹²

To the confirmation, it is answered that the assumed major premise is true only when the second cause is purely efficient, but not when the effect also implies an intrinsic relation and dependence on the second cause in the genus of formal cause, as happens in a vital act, as was said above.

To the fourth, it is answered that it is not probable that acts of believing or loving God above all things as the author of grace are natural acts as to the substance of the act, or producible by the intellect and will from the powers of nature alone, even as to the substance of those same acts, as is clear from what was said above.¹³ And even if, impossibly, this were admitted, free choice still could not produce those same acts efficiently insofar as they are supernatural unless it were elevated by an inhering gift of grace, as was said above.

To the confirmation, it is answered that the whole supernatural act, according to every reality and formality it has, is produced efficiently by free choice moved by God as its second and proximate cause.¹⁴ Hence the man himself produces the supernatural act through free choice as that which acts, and the inhering gift of grace produces it as the formal principle by which he acts. But God produces it as the first supernatural cause, to which free choice is essentially subordinated in its operation, as was said above.

XI. To the fifth, it is answered that supernatural acts elicited by catechumens before the infusion of the habit are of two kinds. Some are imperfect, such as fear of hell and attrition, which is called imperfect contrition. Such acts are elicited by powers elevated not through supernatural habits, but through the special help of God moving them, as the Council of Trent teaches when speaking of attrition.¹⁵ But if they are perfect acts, such as an act of contrition and of love of God above all things, by which man's free choice is disposed proximately to attain the grace of justification, such acts are produced efficiently by powers elevated through supernatural habits, which are infused by God at the same instant of time, although, in the genus of material cause and in the order of nature, the acts precede the infusion of the habit, as was said above. And even if it were admitted, according to that opinion, that those same acts are not produced efficiently by infused habits, it would have to be said that they are produced efficiently by powers elevated by actual help of the supernatural order inhering in those same powers, as was said of other imperfect supernatural acts. To the objection that no actual help is sufficient, it is answered that if actual help were God's immediate influx into the effect together with free choice, as the authors of the contrary opinion hold, it would not suffice to elevate free choice to produce supernatural acts, because it would place nothing real in it prior to its consent. But since, according to the opinion of Saints Augustine and Thomas, God by his actual influx first flows into the second cause before he flows into its effect, as was said above,¹⁶ he can therefore by his special help elevate free choice before the infusion of the habit, so that it elicits supernatural acts through that power.

XII. But there is an argument against this. That actual help, through which a supernatural act is actually produced, must be efficacious, for with sufficient help alone free choice will never act, as the authors of the contrary opinion admit. But the first actual help conferred on catechumens cannot be efficacious, for since efficacious help presupposes sufficient help, it is impossible for the first help conferred on someone to be efficacious. Therefore no actual help can be identified by which supernatural acts are produced by catechumens before the infusion of the habit. Consequently, God by the extrinsic assistance of his power alone elevates their free choice to produce those same acts.

It is answered that, as will become clear in disputation 80, the same actual help of God can be efficacious with respect to one act and sufficient with respect to another.¹⁷ Hence the special help by which God elevates free choice to produce an act of attrition is efficacious with respect to the attrition that it in fact effects, and sufficient in its own order with respect to perfect conversion. Nor is it necessary for efficacious help to presuppose another, sufficient help, for sufficient help is contained eminently in efficacious help. Sometimes it happens that, without dispositions preceding perfect conversion in time, God justifies a sinner in a single instant, according to the words: It is easy in the sight of the Lord suddenly to make a poor person honorable, as St. Thomas also teaches in I–II, question 113, article 7.